


paradoxes of growth and fire

by kaumari



Series: time is the change from stardust to bones [6]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, Hinduism, Indian Mythology & Folklore, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26395192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaumari/pseuds/kaumari
Summary: in which hinduism fades away, but shinsuke doesn't need religion to guide his divinity.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke & Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu
Series: time is the change from stardust to bones [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889728
Kudos: 6





	paradoxes of growth and fire

**Author's Note:**

> reupload from [twitter!](https://twitter.com/kaumaridevi/status/1298790115779604482?s=20)

It has been centuries since his ancestors have lived in Indonesia. It has been as many years since anyone in his family has followed Hinduism. That's no surprise: assimilation is the difference between life and death when you're at the wrong end of a sword. Slowly, the fight to cling to the dregs of the culture you once knew with the intimacy of your own skin leaves with the tides, and you sink into the persona you've created, drown your legacy in that same existence. Deviation is a death sentence at the hands of those in power.

Shinsuke isn't sad about this. There's no point being sad about an outcome he never had a hope of changing. He can't reverse the tide of history, can't take back the life lost to him. He doesn't resent those ancestors for their decisions. He is who he is regardless.

Still, he doesn't expect to find others. Not only others, descendants of the elements. Not only descendants of the elements, twins. It's a hundred thousand stars aligning to create a day auspicious enough to birth a cosmic wonder, to breathe life into two infants whose entire existence is godly to behold. Descendants of Agni are a rarity in Japan, suffocated in fear of a power foreign to them.

If Osamu is the lightning in the sky, fleeting power flashing its spontaneity, then Atsumu is the fire on the earth, raging and hungering for all in its path. Shinsuke watches them with interest: watches Atsumu's fire grow in size, from a shrine wick to a temple pit to a ceremonial sacrifice, watches Osamu strike unpredictably with unwavering force, because a lightning strike is the most consistent inconsistency of nature. Both of them carry the promise of chaos, should they choose to unleash it. But in the aftermath there is fresh growth, a revitalization of everyone and everything around them.

They're Shinsuke's polar opposites. Shinsuke is the life given to the ground as a promise of its inevitable death. He's nothing more than a groomer, waiting for the ripe moment to reap what he has sown. Every leaf, every flower, every stalk that jumps at his touch—unfurls and blossoms and rises to reach him—is a reminder that they will curl again, with the difference of earthy brown to remind him that they always belonged to the earth, and that their days were always numbered by Shinsuke's own good will.

He doesn't tell them who he is. They don't tell him either, but it's unlikely they even know of his connection. While the Miya twins blaze in a spotlight of their own making, Shinsuke is content to stand to the side, growing and reaping in equal measure.

And for them, he makes the choice to grow. Humans are not plants to cut down during the harvest season, are not things he has any realm of control over. But it’s his nature to nurture. That’s what it comes down to for a descendant of Dewi Sri. He may not be able to recover a lost culture, a lost history. But he can continue to fulfill the trace of divinity in his blood, the purpose of existence woven into his soul, and perhaps a fire—spontaneous and consuming—will give him space to grow.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/timelessidyll) \+ [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/timelessidyll)!


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